My friend’s almost two year old eats broccoli. He can eat entire meals of just broccoli. I am way jealous of her. As I have mentioned quite a few times along this journey of mommyhood, X is a picky eater. Fruits and vegetables are nowhere on his radar of things he likes to eat. I have tried many things along the way to get him to eat food that does not come in nugget form. I’ve also tried putting the good food into nugget form- like the broccoli-cheese bites that Cupcakes uses- but to no avail. He can tell the difference between a cauliflower ‘tater tot’ and the real deal no matter how perfectly formed they are. He rejects the smoothie trickery that Mom Swim Bike Run employs and won’t even drink one of those PediaSure shakes that the commercials insisted he’d love.

The Mom Who TRI’s is on to something with those muffins of hers, although the zucchini is far too visible in her rendition to pass X’s Veggie Detecting Hyper-Vision. I’ll try making them, but I’ll have to make sure every speck of zucchini skin is gone. I’ve used similar chicanery before.

There are some non-tricksy ways of feeding X. He gets Fruitables juice in his cup. Almost all pasta in our home has been replaced with Garden Delight pasta. And he’s pretty open to veggie chips like Terra Chips and what comes in our monthlyNatureBox. But for the most part, feeding vegetables to the X-Man involves putting them into the food processor until they are unrecognizable and then blending it in with some form of meat or cheese substance. Mini-meatloaves, cheeseburgers, ravioli.. nothing is sacred. All have ended up with at least minced up box of frozen peas and carrots in it.

Spicy Roasted Vegetable Macaroni and Cheese This one only works if the vegetables are truly minced up and there is enough cheese to mute the bright colors of healthiness.

Cauliflower-based mock alfredo – Again, cheese fixes everything

Is this anyway to teach the kid that vegetables are delicious part of his diet? No. He still insists he doesn’t like green beans, even though 65% of his cheeseburger came from Green Giant. But it should hold off the rickets and pellagra until his taste buds evolve a little.

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